Scientists develop new lithium battery that charges 10 times faster than current batteries

From mobile phones to laptops, from electric cars to airplanes, lithium-ion batteries are widely used in the industry. Therefore, every performance improvement of lithium batteries will have a wide impact on the world. Some of these improvements are incremental advances in experimenting with alternative materials, while some come from reimagining the entire device and how it works. Recently, the University of Twente in the Netherlands has developed a new lithium-ion battery that charges 10 times faster than current batteries.

This is largely thanks to a completely new anode. The University of Twente scientists created an anode out of a material called nickel niobate. This material has an "open and regular" crystal structure with identical, repeating channels, making it ideal for ion transport.

When a battery is cycled, lithium ions move back and forth between the two electrodes, but not all of them make the journey. This causes electrochemically inactive lithium "islands" to form between the two electrodes and become disconnected from them. These clumps cause the storage capacity of the device to drop or even cause it to catch fire.

These stability issues arise from needle-like protrusions called "dendrites" that form on the lithium metal anode during charging, causing the battery to degrade in performance, fail, or even catch fire. Li and his colleagues sought to overcome this problem by swapping out the battery's liquid electrolyte for a pair of solid electrolytes that are layered together in a BLT-style sandwich and safely control and contain the dendrites as they form.

The new lithium battery uses nickel niobate (NiNb2O6) as a material. Nickel niobate has a unique crystal structure with identical and repeated ion transmission channels. In terms of material manufacturing, it does not need to be assembled in a clean room. In addition, nickel niobate is denser than graphite and has a higher volume energy density, which makes it more likely to create a lighter and simpler commercial battery.

In testing, the team found that it retained 82% of its capacity after 10,000 cycles, and, most encouragingly, demonstrated current densities that could one day allow electric vehicles to be charged in just 20 minutes.